President Trump backed away Wednesday from pursuing new tax cuts, a sharp reversal from a day earlier, when he had floated several such measures the White House was contemplating. Mr. Trump also dismissed another idea he had mentioned, lowering capital-gains taxes by indexing gains to inflation. 

The whiplash comes as Mr. Trump and his aides have publicly maintained that the economy remains on strong footing, despite some recent warning signs and as the president pressures the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates further.

Minutes from the Fed’s July 30-31 meeting showed that officials faced divisions over their decision to cut rates and viewed the action as a “recalibration” rather than the start of a more aggressive easing cycle. Chairman Jerome Powell’s challenge now is to articulate clearly why the central bank is likely to continue reducing rates. 

In recent weeks, government agencies have substantially lowered their estimates of job gains, output growth and corporate profits over different periods from early 2018 through the first quarter of this year, as part of their regularly scheduled updates based on fuller data.

• The Congressional Budget Office said federal deficits are projected to grow much more than expected over the next decade. The budget agreement struck last month will add roughly $1.7 trillion to deficits between 2020 and 2029.

• Bond yields in many countries world-wide have fallen to record lows this summer. Yet few governments have responded as many bankers and investors say they should, by locking in ultralow rates for decades.

The retail divide is widening. Stores such as Walmart and Target offering deals and conveniences are attracting customers at the expense of chains that have been slower to innovate, including Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Nordstrom.

Convenience can take many forms: for example, the ability to dash directly into a store from the parking lot instead of navigating a shopping-mall maze, or free two-day shipping with no minimum purchase required, as Target offered this past holiday season.

Meanwhile, department stores are suffering as shoppers make fewer visits to malls and buy more items online. Also, unlike Walmart and Target, department stores don’t have large grocery offerings prompting shoppers to make frequent visits.

• Lowe’s reported higher earnings in its latest quarter that topped expectations.
   
• U.S. stocks climbed yesterday after strong earnings reports from retailers.

The Trump administration moved to allow the government to indefinitely detain families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and supersede a decades-old federal court settlement that limits how long migrant children can be held in custody and sets standards for their care. The policy change could permit authorities to detain families through the duration of their immigration proceedings, rather than release them or separate children from their detained parents.

• Arizona universities are considering expanding access to a special tuition rate for certain illegal immigrants.
   
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill that would require sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

PG&E conducted an unusual inspection of the power line that sparked the deadliest wildfire in California’s history weeks before it failed, a step the utility has said it normally takes only when it suspects a safety problem.

The disclosure that workers climbed portions of the Caribou-Palermo line last fall, which PG&E noted in a recent court filing, suggests the company had concerns about the condition of its lines before the Camp Fire, which killed 86 people.

PG&E performed inspections of about 80 towers on the Caribou-Palermo line before the fire as part of a larger effort to determine “the condition of its aging transmission lines,” a company spokeswoman said. She declined to reveal the results. The inspections didn’t include the steel transmission tower where a line fell from a hook and sparked the Camp Fire, said spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo.

Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam. They are finding it impossible. With the U.S. and China in a trade war, this should be Vietnam’s time to shine. Instead, it is becoming clear that it will be years, if ever, before the Southeast Asian country and other aspiring manufacturing destinations are ready to replace China as the world’s factory floor. 

The specialized supply chains that made China a production powerhouse for goods from smartphones to aluminum ladders are nowhere near as developed in Vietnam. Factories with U.S.-focused safety certifications and capital-intensive machinery aren’t as easy to find. Also, Vietnam is already running into labor shortages as global manufacturers rush to set up shop there.

Events in Virginia this week are marking the 400th anniversary of the first arrival of captured Africans to the area, which many historians consider the founding of black slavery in the British colonies that later became the United States.

Historians and those campaigning for African-American rights have long considered 1619 the start of what many call America’s “original sin.” The commemorations come as many people re-examine the role of slavery’s legacy in America’s troubled race relations, from the colonial era to the present day.

What We’re Following

Danish Dustup: President Trump criticized Denmark’s prime minister and accused her of “blowing off the U.S.” a day after he canceled a trip to the Scandinavian country because she rejected the possibility of talks about selling Greenland. Mr. Trump also told reporters he favors background checks for gun buyers, but offered no clarification of his stance amid recent indications he was backing away from stricter rules.

• The Trump administration has been secretly talking with top aides of Nicolás Maduro in an effort to push Venezuela’s authoritarian president from power and clear the way for free elections in the economically devastated country.

Ear Exam: An annual tour to survey corn and soybean fields in several Farm Belt states is taking place this week, as the industry faces unprecedented uncertainty. The USDA said it removed seven employees in its statistics division from the crop tour after one received a violent threat.

Burning Issue: Vast fires, many of them set by loggers, are ravaging the Amazon at a rate not seen in years, sending plumes of smoke that darken skies over Brazilian cities. 

Healthy Growth: Insurers including Oscar, Cigna and Centene are expanding their Affordable Care Act plans for next year, with the once-troubled business now profitable even as the overall individual-insurance market has shrunk.

Act of Transparency: A divided Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 to urge consulting firms known as proxy advisers to take more steps to disclose how they craft shareholder recommendations.

Trending Stories at WSJ.com

You got a “free” internet-speed upgrade. Then your bill went up. (Read)

Arizona Cardinals Coach Kliff Kingsbury, a guru on offense, is engineering the wildest experiment in the NFL: Can the team win by running a college-style offense led by a coach who had a losing record in college running the same system? (Read)

What Else We’re Reading

The sports-news site haters love to dunk on, the Athletic, keeps signing up subscribers. Can it turn a profit? (Bloomberg)

China’s top officials still come to Mao’s favorite beach to make fateful decisions, but the general public now also tries to squeeze into a spot on the sand, even if many avoid sunbathing. (New York Times)

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer was cast on TV’s “Dancing With the Stars,” a decision that brought immediate backlash from the program’s host and others. (Washington Post)

Today’s Question and Answer

In response to our question about your favorite tech-themed or futuristic book, movie or TV show:

Lorry Turner, New York
“The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells. Given the winner-takes-all dynamic of Big Tech, the accretion of power and eyeballs in the hands of an ultra-slim minority will reinforce itself. A broad sweep of human history teaches us that vast concentrations of power rarely turn out well for the powerless. The emergence of a potent tech-enabled subclass against the increasingly redundant masses is eerily foreshadowed in the author’s description of two strata in society. The question is whether natural selection will progressively winnow out intelligence in the powerful few whose need for it shrinks as the technology they control provides a substitute.

Patrick Duggan, New York
My favorite is “The Last Days of Night” by Graham Moore. The battle between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse comes off the pages as a fanciful account of what might have happened, and then you read the epilogue that reinforces the possibility that maybe this exciting David and Goliath story could be what really happened. Our David is a young lawyer in the service of Westinghouse, and the first-person perspective adds to the drama and mystery as the story unfolds, including an interesting perspective on Tesla and a romantic side story. I worked in the electric-utility industry for more than 40 years. I found this tale to be an exciting and thought-provoking possible version of real events from a century ago that were certainly futuristic in their own time.

PJ Heckmann, New York
In “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams,” a TV series based on his canonical works in the science-fiction genre, the episode “Autofac” centers on the aftermath of a nuclear war and one large corporation’s (read: Amazon) automated factory grown out of control. It is destroying what’s left of the environment, as the facility continues to build products and ship them to a surviving population no longer obsessed with consumerism.

Question for tomorrow’s 10-Point:
What are your thoughts on the Trump administration’s new plan for migrant families, which would permit authorities to detain families throughout the duration of their immigration proceedings rather than release them or separate children from detained parents?

Email us your comments, which we may edit before publication, to 10point@wsj.com, and make sure to include your first and last name and location.